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I'd still rather have a fun night at the Bijou on E. 4th St. (aka The Winter Ramble) -- I'm sure you're familiar with that unmarked red door. Plus they always had a bowl of free oreos next to the condoms that nobody touched.

When I lived on E12th/2nd I was a regular. Wonderbar (pre-lounge makeover) for some cold Jaggermeister shots with Anita Cocktail first, piss break on curry row second, and then the Bijou where I would have staring contests with people who wouldn't give up a booth despite them not getting any interested parties.

I stopped going around the time Guiliani began his crack done ('93-'94?) that had them shine bright floodlights in many of the areas and put lockers in many of the group rooms.

Now that I think about it, that is about the time that I started to utilize online hook-up sites.

So there you go. Guiliani is to blame for the state of gay culture today.

No matter the venue: Manhunt, public parks, baths, bars or adult book stores all are outlets for cruising for sex. We use which ever one works best, for me it has always been the later. Manhunt has just taken the search for our desire to a new level. With just a click we pretty much know everything we need in deciding if this is the guy to do the nasty with - top, above average uncut cock, into WS, rimming, FF, discipline, enjoys opera and knitting. Better to know before hooking up than to cruise a hot guy that you really want only to find out when you finally hook up he is a big o' nellie bottom.

My problem with the internet is that you lose the human element. Voice inflections, facial gestures, rolling eyes, etc that add greatly to conversations. Plus there is no accountability to anyone for some of the vile things that are said. I have never had anyone walk up to me in a bar, restaurant or some cruising venue and call me a "Poz Skank" like I have online.

Things change, manhunt will probably fall by the wayside when the next "thing" comes along, much the way 8 track tapes were replaced by the cassette.

« Last Edit: August 08, 2008, 01:11:43 PM by woodshere »

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"Let us give pubicity to HV/AIDS and not hide it..." "One of the things destroying people with AIDS is the stigma we attach to it." Nelson Mandela

people who wouldn't give up a booth despite them not getting any interested parties.

We called them "campers" and they were majorly tired. And before anyone gets the *cough* wrong idea about Philicia, though I lived a mere 5 blocks away I was not a Bijou regular (though I did once lose my apartment keys in Booth 13)

Plus there is no accountability to anyone for some of the vile things that are said. I have never had anyone walk up to me in a bar, restaurant or some cruising venue and call me a "Poz Skank" like I have online.

Perhaps that's because in a seedy, smelly adult bookstore booth you're not wearing a "Hello" stickie on your shirt that says "My name is Poz"?

Going back to the original concept.... yes, it is destroying the gay culture... along with the straight. At the same time, culture is something is destroyed and born everyday.

The anonymous nature of it all is I think the draw. Ask yourself, how many of you speak with your neighbors? Do you know their names? Do you get home from work and head in doors? Do you at least wave or say hello when you see them.

I don't speak much to my neighbors, no. That's life in a city apartment building. You say a terse "hello" in the hallway and that's basically it. You don't socialize. Again, there's some context here of urban vs. rural and how we view the social effects of the internet. Whether you see it as some disturbing, nefarious thing I'd suspect is somewhat dependent on this. It's also regional. People in northeastern cities have different urban social mores than they do in, say the south. People in the south have that dreadfully annoying habit of cheerfully saying hello every 5 seconds to absolutely everybody.

I don't speak much to my neighbors, no. That's life in a city apartment building. You say a terse "hello" in the hallway and that's basically it. You don't socialize. Again, there's some context here of urban vs. rural and how we view the social effects of the internet. Whether you see it as some disturbing, nefarious thing I'd suspect is somewhat dependent on this. It's also regional. People in northeastern cities have different urban social mores than they do in, say the south. People in the south have that dreadfully annoying habit of cheerfully saying hello every 5 seconds to absolutely everybody.

Ah, you must mean the homophobic, AIDS-phobic kitchen knife set burning meth-&-manhunt addict that lives below me, who is actually gay and infected with AIDS? Oh yeah, she's a major nasty piece of work, with that endless fresh supply of supple 18 year old flesh imported for nightly seeding. I'm tempted to alert the PA Dept. of Health.

Ah, you must mean the homophobic, AIDS-phobic kitchen knife set burning meth-&-manhunt addict that lives below me, who is actually gay and infected with AIDS? Oh yeah, she's a major nasty piece of work, with that endless fresh supply of supple 18 year old flesh imported for nightly seeding. I'm tempted to alert the PA Dept. of Health.

The other people aren't so bad.

Isn't that the same neighbor that put up the vile pieces of 'artwork' in your hallways?

The anonymous nature of it all is I think the draw. Ask yourself, how many of you speak with your neighbors? Do you know their names? Do you get home from work and head in doors? Do you at least wave or say hello when you see them.

Actually, we do say hello to them just about every day. You do not make eye contact with somebody in the South and not say hello (or at least wave and/or smile). To obviously avoid eye contact, and thus avoid the hello thing, would be extremely rude. It would be very uncommon for us to be outside and somebody walk by in the street or on the sidewalk and not wave, smile, or say hello. Then again, this is the South. I'm not as sociable outside much in the summer; it's just too damned hot - it was 97į outside yesterday when I got home!

Many of you all are too young, with the exception of Joel, Philly and Steve, to remember what life was like BA (before AIDS), which as it happens, was also BI (Before Internet)." quote Mark

I feel as though I need to say something...anything...in response to Marks invitation to speak. I've been trying to remember what it WAS like and here are a few examples:In 1967 I was in San Francisco to "experience" the HIPPIE takeover of Haight Asbury and Castro. Castro was gay gay gay and guys came from all over the country just to hang out on Castro. Gay bars were packed. Complimentary finger nail files ( no complimentary condoms in those days)...complimentary tins of crisco. Bars bars bars...but at the same time I remember there being a sense of freedom and wonder just to be THERE in San Francisco and be part in some small way of the ultimate takeover of society in the USA. We had big plans. Nixon had to go....and then WE would get elected to office and change the laws to DECRIMINALIZE HOMOSEXUALITY and have the medical profession change the classification of homosexuality from ABNORMAL to NORMAL. I think to deny that there was ever a sense of unity in the face of adversity is absurd. There were significant GAY LIBERATION organizations in New York and San Francisco. Well, of course Nixon knew for SURE by then that the commies were going to take over and the shootings of the students at Kent State University just confirmed that we were in for a big fight. How the man ever became impeached is beyond me since we kind of expected a totalitarian state to emerge with him as MONARCH. Anyway....oh yea...gay culture. That IS gay culture.....the organizing, the coming together to fight for our CIVIL RIGHTS and SEXUAL FREEDOM was gay culture in the pre AIDS era. Bars and sex and drugs were sort of like a side effect of the GAY RIGHTS movement. More and more people were OUT and COMING OUT became a BIG DEAL and even today there is a COMING OUT FESTIVAL here in Philadelphia. So we went out and marched for gay pride and then went and had meth fueled sex orgies...or whatever your drug of choice was. Drugs and the "drug culture" did kind of get out of hand, but we knew that would have to change......BUT BEFORE ANYONE COULD SAY "BARBARA STRIESAND" WE HAD AIDS TO DEAL WITH and all of the organizing that went into GAY RIGHTS quickly switched to Act Up and organizing ASO's and trying to get medicines released to treat HIV.....so if you want to thank GAY CULTURE for your ASO's go right ahead you have my permission.Then all my friends died.Then the internet came along...as yet to prove its worth. But I would say AIDSMEDS is a "good" outcome of the internet.So those are my thoughts.

Yes, I know all my neighbors and always speak and wave. It is very Wisteria Lane. We take care of the neighbor's dog, kids come to the door with cookies, people have holiday parties and cookouts etc. The neighbor behind us had their house catch fire and they lived with the neighbor across from them for two months. Our neighborhood has an association that will address an unkempt lawn with Nazi-like efficiency. I don't know if this is a Southern thing or not. I knew my neighbors when I lived in Seattle and Los Angeles too.

Of course I know my neighbors. I see them all the time, we always wave and often have communal barbecues or cookouts for the entire neighborhood.

Children come to my door to give me cookies or ask me to buy something to support this or that. Their parents don't think twice about it.

People walking by always say hi, or I speak to them. We often share garden produce and stories over the back fence and the neighbor's dog thinks I am part of his family. (I am not crazy about dogs, but what can I say.)

If someone needs a hand unloading something, people always are ready to lend a hand. It is just the way it is.

We watch out for each other and keep an eye on each other's houses and yards. Anything unusual or people who are not known lurking about merits a visit from the police, called by our watchful neighbors.

My pellet stove was putting out a lot of smoke last year. I had five neighbors call to make sure the house wasn't on fire.

So, I guess the answer is yes, I know my neighbors, they know me. They don't care that I'm gay or that I have HIV.

Hee. No, it's really more just in the city, not out in the burbs and country small towns. I did specifically use the word "city" in my original comment.

I live in a 4-story pre-1900 townhouse on a main boulevard with 6 apartments. There are probably 500 people just on one block. I said I say "hello" to people in the hallways. I guess that's like waving at someone over a fence where you live. Do you realize what the turnover rate is of tenants in a rental building? I've been here 3 years and I'm already the 2nd oldest tenant. It was the same thing when I lived in NYC.

By "socialize" I was meaning more like having dinner with them, going to a movie or something. I do have friends like that in the immediate neighborhood -- one couple 2 blocks away and another couple 7 blocks away.

I met two very good friends of 30 years (both passed away a few years ago) through a "looking for friends" newspaper ad back in 1973. When we met, it was like we were destined to be friends. We had some fun times!

I met my first partner of 20 years and fresh out of the military on a greyhound bus traveling through Richmond. I remember I was eating homemade pound cake and sipping on a coke. We used to laugh years later remembering how we first met.

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"He is my oldest child. The shy and retiring one over there with the Haitian headdress serving pescaŪto frito."

My pellet stove was putting out a lot of smoke last year. I had five neighbors call to make sure the house wasn't on fire. So, I guess the answer is yes, I know my neighbors, they know me. They don't care that I'm gay or that I have HIV.

I guess those easterners don't live this way. Pity.

I'm so glad that I missed the bulk of this thread, but not all East Coast city dwellers live in a chosen state of isolation from those who live near them. Admittedly, my partner and I are not super-social with everyone on the block, mostly because several of the men are hetero and just too damned fine and several of the women are just crazy, but everyone does look out for one another. The humpy 40yo cop next door lives in a McMansion built on the lot that once held the tiny house where he was raised, and he had patrols coming by every 20 minutes last fall when I had some odd media attention. The couple across the street and to the north raised their likewise humpy son here, too. three other couples have been on the street for nearly 50 years. The poz retiree neighbor often asks to borrow a cup of Crisco, as well as the use of my challenging hands and forearms <EG>. When I was confined to home awaiting brain surgery in March, they were all calling to check on me during the day.

Maybe it's because my corner of an urban county is very "settled" like the neighborhoods where I was raised and lived as an adult a few miles away. No homes crammed with twenty-somethings who will only be around for 6 to 12 months... except for the girls two doors down on who we have to call the police almost every nice weekend when they party on their back deck til 1 a.m.

This thread has definitely gone in a weird track, but the whole thing about "but not all East Coast city dwellers live in a chosen state of isolation from those who live near them," had me cracking up.

I don't think East Coast city dwellers in general are isolated from each other or even unfriendly with their neighbors in the least. To the contrary, all the places I lived in New York, it never struck me as odd as someone who lived in my building who I didn't know knocking on my door to borrow a hammer or a corkscrew or something. I also found people in the northeast cities immediately offer to help someone in their neighborhood if the see them struggling with packages or something regardless of "knowing" them.

The thing about the northeast cities is that the meaning behind "neighbor" is a little antiquated. People may not know much about the guy next door, but they may just never run into him (something that is not unusual in cities) but I guarantee they will know names and personal lives of the people who they run into everyday at the local deli, dry cleaner, dog park, etc.

Maybe the Northeast cities aren't about getting to know everyone's names or taking the time to say hello to everyone you see (which in the high density city center's of the Northeast would be a bit ridiculous), but I really don't see those items as anything but superficial markers of what it means to be friendly with your neighbors.

Lastly, to bring this weirdly back to Manhunt, I just remembered as I wrote this how many people (myself included) would refuse to accept invitations from people in a neighborhood they considered too far away...even if we are talking about a 5-10 minute cab ride. Hooking up with someone on the Upper East side while you were in Tribeca was just considered an impossibly long trek not worth it.

Thanks Iggy, you said what I was attempting to express much more fully. I was trying to show a "compare and contrast" in a quick vague way of what I grew up with (smallish town, kindasortanotreally Southern) versus big city (specifically northeast).

I only offered the contrast as a potential difference in how folks perceive the effects of "internet socialization" on either gay culture specifically or culture at large, which is the basis for this thread.

ps: I never had a problem traveling far for cock, if it was something particular I was looking for but then I have rather specific tastes. It's like looking for quail eggs on a menu.

It is like when I hear "gay" men who say, "I'm not into the gay scene or bars."

OK, what are they into? I have news for them, nobody looks straight when they're down on their knees.

Markie.. that really is so true......

Friends of mine just came back from SFO.They had been looking forward to explore this Mekka for gays... but ended up very disappointed as there are only a couple of leather bars let.And the bartenders were unanimous....they blame the internet.

I do admit that it is a lot more exciting to cruise in a park or bathhouse, but nothing goes faster then an internet encounter. It's just that an handsome 38 year old mostly appears to be a granddaddy with bad breath.....

Those were the days....

Hermie

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Diagnosed in 1987 and still kickingKivexa (Epzicom),Tivicay once daily

Hmm...I don't know. I like Manhunt. If I need to get laid and a FB isn't available it's definitely helped out. One thing I can say is that when I'm in a relationship it is a monogamous one and I cancel my Manhunt account. I think it just depends on how loyal someone can be. I know a lot of couples that have Manhunt and they are on it for just "friends" but then their interest is piqued and they start to have maybe a j/o session, then it transpires to oral, then to anal and goes out of control.

It hasn't ruined it for me. I have will power. I just think the average gay man wants a relationship but also wants the ability to keep their options open and play with other men while they are emotionally attached to one guy.

*shrugs* I don't get it, but I'm happy to not. I'll stick to my occasional tricks whether they are partnered or not, however, when I'm in a relationship "bye bye manhunt".